Hundreds volunteer for coronavirus vaccine trial as scientists fast track human testing

Scientists hope to be mass producing a coronavirus vaccine by September – but not before it’s tested on hundreds of willing volunteers.

Human trials for a coronavirus vaccine will start in two days with UK scientists hoping the vaccine could be in mass production by September.

Scientists from the Imperial College London have accelerated the trial process of the vaccine and are in the middle of recruiting 1112 “healthy volunteers”.

During the blind study, up to 561 will be vaccinated with the candidate vaccine ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, and up to 551 will be vaccinated with a control vaccine. Volunteers will not know what group they are in.

Anyone chosen for the study will receive compensation for their time, travel and contribution and those who participate until the end will receive a total payment of £235.

Hundreds have already signed up for the trial with many saying they would have done it even without financial compensation.

Imperial College London itself said while “there are no direct benefits of taking part … knowledge gained from this study will help us develop a vaccine against the newly emerging coronavirus disease COVID-19”.

The potential vaccine breakthrough comes as the UK’s coronavirus death toll exceeds more than 17,000.